Bugged Ra-Den Kill
It seems a group in China was able to defeat Ra-Den today due to a bug in the encounter, which may have been addressed by tonight's hotfixes. This did confirm that Ra-den does not die at the end of the encounter, which we assumed from the sound files.

Patch 5.2 Hotfixes: April 8

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker)

Creatures

Zandalari Beast Handler is now properly seated in a saddle while riding a Direhorrn.

During the Primordius encounter, spells which dispel a single harmful effect (Sear Magic, Single Magic, or Mass Dispel) will no longer work if any of the positive effects are active on the target (Improved Synapses, Keen Eyesight, Thick Bones, Clear Mind, or Fully Mutated).

Ra-den

Fixed an issue that could prevent Ra-den from absorbing Essences of Anima/Vita as intended.

WoW Subscriber Numbers and Content Release SpeedYou're point? WoW is still doing well compared to it's aclaimed "killers" GW2, Tera and SWTOR all which went F2P except for GW2 which already was. I'm not seeing a single point in this whole OP.

Other than lost jobs? Or are they still employing the same amount of people that they did when they had 12 million?
The WoW development team has more members now than ever before!

You're seeing less time between content cycles as we continue to grow and essentially restructure our production pipeline, so that some designers within each WoW development team can focus on alternating patches. Mind you, there's no black-and-white divide in the team -- everyone's contributing in some way to each patch and expansion -- but we can have members from each team focused sharply on 5.3, while others are already working hard on 5.4 and beyond.(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

WoW Changes Over TimeI think any new player who has been exposed to more than a couple of hours of online gaming would feel insulted by how stupidly easy it is. The only challenge is not falling asleep within 10 minutes of starting a session.
Any new player would probably try to understand what's going on, what is he/she supposed to do, how that particular class plays, familiarize himself/herself with the area where he/she's playing...

Generalizations like this one aren't really helpful in these discussions.

You mean about 1 afternoons work for a new intern? There have been literally dozens of constructive posts on how to do this. One very easy way of beginning to reimplement challenge to the levelling process is to re-introduce orange/red quests.
Changing anything in a game is not as simple as going in and changing numbers. It's easy to pull numbers out of thin air to make an argument look stronger, but the fact is, at the end of the day it's just made up numbers. (And there's also the underlying discussion if the leveling experience should be challenging for newcomers and veteran players alike, and so on).

Orange quests still exist. But keep in mind the color of the quest is only an indicator of how hard that quest will be based on your character level. If your character is level 40, and the quest you want to do is for level 44, it'll be displayed orange. While, if the quest is for level 30, it'll be grey.

Back in Vanilla WoW, if you were in, say, Eastern Plaguelands, at level 50, maybe you'd be able to take quests for levels 52 and 59, while one would be yellow, the other one would be displayed red. Now, since Eastern Plaguelands is a level 40-45 zone, you'll get quests within that level range.

I would have to dedicate myself to do challenge mode dungeons, as I would have to be online together with four other people. PvP is not challenging, only part of that which is challenging is high end arena and what do you know, you need time and dedication to get there. Soloing raids... is that really all that is left? In Rift you find challenge in almost everything you do, from zone events to normal dungeons.
You can also do the Brawler's Guild content, which is quite challenging (particularly at Rank 7 and above).

for example, once upon a time you had to play a class to really understand how to play it, all the little nuances
now, i honestly believe i could roll a lvl90 (insert class ive never played) and excel at it within minutes.
The game does a much better job these days to tell you the basic things about your class (such as the most important abilities of the talent spec you pick), if you pair that with the amount of online resources available, I wouldn't be surprised if someone can excel at a particular class in a short amount of time after playing with it.

On the other hand, shouldn't the fun of playing the game be at overcoming challenges rather than making the game be obscure at things like not telling you what Hit or Critical strike chance are for? In fact, do you think the raid content would be as difficult as it is these days (mechanic wise) if people were still trying to figure out obscure class mechanics?

Just curious to see what do you mean when you talk about challenges in the game. There's the artificial challenge (understanding what your character does because the game just isn't telling you) or killing an innately difficult raid boss (for which the argument of not having enough time doesn't really work, since you could argue that finding the time required to kill a heroic boss should be, in fact, considered part of that challenge you crave for). (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

ClassesWhat's the point of vengeance Why not just make tank abilities scale better with AP in tank spec with high threat modifier?
High threat modifiers were often invisible and confusing. We want tanks to care about damage not just spamming threat. (Source)
DPS specs scale with many stats (such as haste and crit). Tank damage (for the most part) scales from just Strength or Agi. (Source)Prob with veng is tank swaps. Taunt not updated from vanilla. Gives prior tank's threat, but not his vengeance.
Because we want your attacks to matter, not just coasting on what the previous tank did. (Source)I think what Oatz means is that Tank 1 has to stop attacking so he doesn't pull back from Tank 2 which just taunted.
Understand that we're not trying to make threat no longer a thing. We just don't want it to throttle the DPS. (Source)Threat does matter. Tanks care about it+dmg. We don't like stopping attacks on switches, especially with high Veng.
You get half Vengeance from taunting. We think it's fine. (Source)

any chance of bringing back vengeance for pvp tanks?
Generally when tanks are having fun in PvP, nobody else is. (Source)

Do u believe that players now have to push to many buttons to effectively play their class? More buttons = less fun. Thoughts?
A rotation with say 4-5 core buttons and 1-2 cooldowns is ideal. It's the situational buttons that complicate things. (Source)
Consider that these days the expectation is for a different AE rotation than single-target. (Source)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)Vanilla class (Warrior) outshined in every area it excels by a (newer) DK class. WTG Guys.
So monks must be outshining DKs then? (Source)DK's can dps all day long in Blood. Warriors? No. One or the other has to change, so maybe monks will shine more down the road
We don't like Unholy DKs sitting in Blood Presence. Frost generally could not afford to. (Source)Does that mean you'll be adjusting Unholy DKs but not Frost?
That's the plan. Something like Sudden Doom requires Unholy Presence. Switch to Blood if you need the defenses. (Source)

DW frost CAN NOT dps in blood presence. I say it again: The changes made to DW and 2h frost in MOP, IS STUPID!
As I said, Frost can't sit in Blood Presence. Unholy can, and it's a concern for PvP. (Source)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)any chance on removing some hunter ability bloat in 6.0?(maybe before?) seems too many buttons since MoP
We tried to remove some before but still get "Bring back Eyes of the Beast!" requests. We'll try again. (Source)If you don't want to use EOTB you don't have to, but having readiness means the class has to use it for bestDPS
Sure, but we could buff every shot to compensate and call it a day. Hunters have plenty of ways to demonstrate skill these days. (Source)
We think the core rotation buttons are fine. There are a LOT of situational hunter buttons though. (Source)when I complain about bloat, I mean abilities that are part of my dps rotation, like Glaive, DireBeast, Crows, Stampede.
You have a passive option to Dire Beast. We could add one to the Crows row. Rapid Fire and Readiness could probably be pruned. (Source)any change you make, you'll have a portion of the hunter base complaining, I wouldn't want to be on you shoes.
Yup. All the hunters happy with the number of buttons (or specific ones) won't say much until they are gone. (Source)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)If mass dispel's defensive utility is too powerful, then increase the mana cost significantly.
We considered that, but if you make it expensive enough to really hurt, it does affect Shadow utility in PvE. (Source)

Old Mass Dispel glyph (cast time) is baked in for Holy and Disc. (Source)Way overnerfing shadow. You said yourself that you didn't want to weaken shadow's raid utility.
We tried not to. Glyph of Mass Dispel isn't super popular with Shadow PvE and you rarely need to Void Shift on short cooldowns. (Source)Raid utility? Mass dispel nerf is slap on the face for ARENA utility. Something you didn't want to touch.
Shadow has plenty of PvP utility and really high damage to boot. (Source)

How about you give Shadows a replacement spell instead of Voidshift? It's hardly worth the level 87 slot.
Shadow can still use VS for occasional PvE utility. It was causing problems in PvP giving the rest of the Shadow arsenal. (Source)

whats the reasoning for doubling the cool down practically on Shadow Void Shift? It's now just a worse vers of LoH but same CD
We have to balance around the whole package, not individual spells. (Source)

I've played disc forever and I do not spam one spell. I utilize just about all of my spells.
Good priests do. The concern is more that bad priests can still be pretty effective with a lot less effort. (Source)

Is atonement really that OP?
Yes. It should trade off healing for some DPS. Didn't feel like it was much of a healing loss. (Source)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)Does Glyph of Unleashed Lightning being changed mean LB can be cast on the move baseline now?
Yes. (Source)Will it be castable on the move for other specs too?
Not sure yet. Might be okay, but Resto for one doesn't need any kind of PvP buff. (Source)

The game needs less cast while moving.. atleast for pvp.
Agreed in general, but it's a benefit Elemental already had and doesn't seem like a big balance risk. It's also not instant. (Source)

Old Unleashed Lightning glyph benefit is baked in for Elemental. Cast time penalty just goes away. (Anything can change before 5.3 launch.) (Source)So buff for Ele which is doing pretty well and an extra glyph Enhance has to try to make room for when already bloated?
Giving you a potentially useful glyph is a nerf? Is removing a useful glyph a buff? (Source)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)Careful what you wish for.. remove the word clunky and ppl use "bad design".On topic, 34sec CD tremor needs a look at
What they usually mean is "I don't like" which then at least can get into why they don't like something. Clunky conveys nothing. (Source)

I know its story yet untold but, is there any reason why this quest is not obtainable?
Originally the warlock quest continued but we feared what came later would not be able to compete with the awesome of BT. (Source)

Why don't we have the option to help Akama in the warlock quest? The ring reward seems to be in game at least, glitch?
We removed the choice because we felt like there would generally be a right answer and folks would have to stop and wiki it. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)I'm still wondering why the heck you changed the Rage system for Warriors. I preferred Cata Style.
For the most part, the Cata style was that rage didn't matter and you just hit buttons as fast as you could. (Source)I like the new rage system, but HS/Slam don't feel as integral to dumping rage as before for Arms.
If rage isn't unbounded, then there will be less HS use almost by definition. (Source)

PvP: Execute Melee/Needs Rage(issue) 30k noncrit : Shadowburn Ranged/mana(nonissue) 130k noncrit, can you explain?
We try not to design abilities to be mirror images of each other. (Source)

Blizzard Acquires IGN Pro League Assets

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker)

As an important next step in its ongoing efforts to provide world-class entertainment, Blizzard has purchased IGN Pro League technology and assets from IGN. Along with this purchase, Blizzard is bringing onboard members of the IPL staff as the foundation for a new team based in San Francisco whose primary focus will be on creating high-quality web and mobile content in support of Blizzard games, while some IPL staff have joined Blizzard's existing eSports team.

“This new team will help us to further develop the rich media experiences that extend the fun and engagement of our games online,” said Itzik Ben-Bassat, Blizzard’s executive vice president of publishing. “This is a team of passionate gamers with a proven track record, and we’re looking forward to now leveraging their expertise and technology to support a variety of online efforts.”

Regarding the transaction, Peer Schneider, executive vice president of IGN, stated, “With the continuing evolution of the eSports space and the renewed focus on our core media brand, we made the decision to sell the IGN Pro League technology and assets and become agnostic in our competitive gaming coverage. Following Blizzard’s acquisition of IPL assets, IGN will partner with multiple organizations and cover their events.”

Well according to the hotfix, the bug had to do with him not absorbing the essences of anima/vita. This probably made it much easier, but even then in the screenshot they're almost all dead. Hopefully he isn't downed until at least another month or so legitimately.

A kill is a kill no matter how it's done especially when other guilds are currently fighting the same bugged encounter. It is a legit world first congrats to them.

You mean like how ensidia killed lk first? The only difference between the 2 is I dont think these people are going to be punished, as they didnt intentionally do it. But the point stands, bugged encounter is bugged.

Well according to the hotfix, the bug had to do with him not absorbing the essences of anima/vita. This probably made it much easier, but even then in the screenshot they're almost all dead. Hopefully he isn't downed until at least another month or so legitimately.

Nope.

"Apparently 七 煌 switched to 10 man after downing Lei Shen in 25 and that made all of Ra-Den's abilities work as it if were 10 man (except they had 25 people there fighting him) [...] The guild supposedly reported the issue to Blizzard so there isn't any actual exploiting going on, just a bug due to the different way in which 10s and 25s are handled in Asia (different lockout etc)."

A kill is a kill no matter how it's done especially when other guilds are currently fighting the same bugged encounter. It is a legit world first congrats to them.

Seriously? They killed it with a bug that allowed them to kill it on 10m using 25 people. So no it doesn't count and you should learn what the bug is before posting dumb statements like that. And Asia and US/EU are not even in the same race. 10m and 25m do not share lockouts in Asia and they can farm both, with 10m being significantly easier and 25m dropping higher level gear than available in US/EU.

Hunters - "Hunters have to many abilities to use."
Blizz - "We removed eyes of the beast."
Hunters - "We didnt use that except when we were bored or to cheese an achievement."

I would like to know what they mean by "pruning" readiness and rapid fire. Anything more than limiting it to the MM tree will really piss me off. Those are 2 of the best abilities we have, especially readiness which lets me use whatever I want twice in a row(except stampede). IMO get rid of stampede, make a petless option in the MoC tier(passive, no extra buttons), bake widow venom into serpent sting. Look I got rid of 3 extra buttons that will actually affect how many we use in a normal situation.

They did the encounter in 10 man with 25 players, after submitting a bug report to Blizzard on it. They knew it was flawed and expect it not to count for them and for Blizzard to take away everything afterwards. They also noticed a big flaw while they where doing the raid, which could be some sort of bug seeing as the encounter is untested.

IMO get rid of stampede, make a petless option in the MoC tier(passive, no extra buttons)

Yuck. No offence but I hate your ideas on Hunters.

Readiness and Rapid Fire are just pretty bland DPS CDs so that's likely why they'd be the targets of pruning. Rapid Fire is also redundant for BM since it has Focus Fire as part of its rotation. Hunters have buttloads of buttons, I'd welcome mine getting her bars cleaned up a bit.